Coming Home?
by LisaT
Summary: Seven of Nine considers what 'home' means in the aftermath of Endgame. A rather dark take on Voyager's arrival in the AQ.


**This story popped into my head more or less intact last night when I was trying to map out another story. The POV is obvious, I think. Please read, and if you enjoy, review. Thanks.**

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Voyager is home.

Apparently, so am I. I do not know what it means.

What is 'home'? Is it physical: a place, a quadrant, a planet, a town or a city?

Is it a person, a group of people, a family- a collective?

Is it a feeling? A perception of being accepted and welcomed?

I have checked the computer databases. There are many old Earth sayings that attempt to define 'home.'

_Home, sweet home. _

_There's no place like home. _

_Home is where, when you get there, they have to take you in._

Commander Chakotay says, 'Home is wherever you happen to be.'

Home to Captain Janeway means Starfleet. It means the corn fields of Indiana she has told me of. It means caramel fudge brownies. It means her mother, Gretchen Janeway, and her sister, Phoebe. Perhaps, if the crew are correct, once upon a time it may also have meant Commander Chakotay. I do not know if this is still true. I have never asked.

Ensign Kim told me once that home was his mother's apple pie. I do not understand this. How can home be a nutritional supplement?

Lieutenant Paris said that _Voyager, _the ship,was home. He quoted a long dead poet: _You can't go home again, and find it still the same…_

Home for Ensign Wildman is the chance to introduce Naomi Wildman to her father. To become a collective of their own: a nuclear family. Naomi Wildman does not agree. When Voyager was attacked by the telepathic pitcher plant, Naomi Wildman found home… irrelevant. I wonder if she still does. I would like to ask, but Ensign Wildman's husband does not like me. He does not wish Naomi to spend time with me.

He is afraid. Many people in the Alpha Quadrant are afraid. I have tried to explain that I am no longer Borg, that since Captain Janeway freed me from the Collective I have been an individual. They do not understand. Even my father's sister, Irene, looks at me and smiles, but the smiles are insincere.

The Doctor is also afraid. Starfleet has a history of treating artificially created sentient lifeforms with disdain. The EMH Mark One programme of which he is an example was rewritten many years ago, and _Photons, Be Free!_ has not increased the Doctor's chances of popularity. He is currently on Utopia Planetia for study. I –miss- him.

I miss Neelix in the mess hall. I miss playing Kadis-Kot with Naomi Wildman. I miss talking with Captain Janeway as I continue my search for humanity. I miss learning about spirituality and emotion from Commander Chakotay. I miss my _Voyager_ collective.

I am alone.

Icheb and I are held by Starfleet Medical as they attempt to ascertain my trustworthiness. Captain Janeway could not liberate me this time: they do not trust her either. She visits us every day and the lines around her eyes are deeper than they were in the Delta Quadrant. She feels guilty, I believe. I have tried to tell her that guilt is irrelevant, but she tries to smile at me and I know she does not agree.

Commander Chakotay is also being held by Starfleet. Lieutenant Paris tells me he is a 'scapegoat' for the actions of the Maquis. Lieutenant Paris himself has been permitted to go free, as has Lieutenant Torres and their daughter, Miral. They have both been discharged from Starfleet, their provisional commissions unratified. I must learn to call them 'Tom' and 'B'Elanna', they tell me. Tom's father is an Admiral. This is why they have been left relatively unmolested, or so Tom thinks. He is angry, I know. So is B'Elanna. Her eyes flash and her fists clench every time they come, and I am… warmed by their emotion, irrelevant as it may seem, and their concern. They say they wish Admiral Janeway had never come from the future to 'save' us.

I do not tell them she came to save me. Me and Chakotay. Perhaps I should. Humans need someone to blame.

They are unhappy, my collective.

If this is home, I agree with Tom and B'Elanna. I wish we had never come, to face the suspicion and distrust of this small-minded quadrant. At the same time, I would not wish to be back in Delta Quadrant- but I miss _Voyager_. I believe that is true for the rest of the crew.

Now, too late, it seems we have discovered the truth.

We have not come home. Home for we of _Voyager_ is not a quadrant or a planet, but a small starship whose once-graceful curves now intermittently flash with Borg green. Home is a strong Captain who never gives up on any of us, who can face down even the Borg, who can redeem a reluctant drone, give an angry warrior peace, and restore the confidence of an ex-convict and a volatile half-Klingon. Home is Tuvok's patience at Tom and Harry's latest prank, Chakotay's dimples, the Captain's rare smile: the one that lights a room. Home is the sound of sensors beeping and my fingers flying across the panels in Astrometrics. Home is my alcove in Cargo Bay Two. Home is the smell of the dark substance that Neelix called 'coffee' and the crew called 'sludge.'

I remember another saying: _Home is where the heart is. _

Ours has gone forever, a dull hulk of metal hovering uselessly in the shipyards of Utopia Planetia.

_You can never go home again, and find it still the same… _

We are still _Voyagers_, seeking to find that which once we had.

_Home._


End file.
